McLaren says it is “unhappy” with the FIA due to the fact that Laurent Mekies is to leave his post with the governing body and join Scuderia Ferrari, breaking an agreement among teams. Laurent Mekies, the current FIA’s safety delegate and deputy race director for Formula 1 and F2, will start at the Italian side in just over six months, on September 20. He will report to technical director Mattia Binotto.
After last year’s Marcin Budkowski case – when the former head of the FIA’s technical department left to join Renault – the matter of gardening leave was discussed by the teams in a Strategy Group meeting. It was agreed that 12 months would be an appropriate minimum wait for former employees of both the FIA and the F1 Group.
“We very unhappy with the FIA for losing yet another key employee to a racing team,” McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said, as reported earlier today by Motorsport.com – “Especially after it was agreed by all teams at the last Strategy Group meeting that no key technical FIA employees would be employed by a race team within 12 months of leaving the FIA. Ferrari went against the gentleman’s agreement, and the FIA has not enforced it.”
Other F1 teams are known to have expressed similar views in private, although they have yet to comment publicly.
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